Changes in water temperature can be deadly to fish

Monday

As the waters warm, lake and pond fishermen need to know that if you are going to keep your catch alive, then precautions need to be taken.

As the waters warm, lake and pond fishermen need to know that if you are going to keep your catch alive, then precautions need to be taken.

Warm water fish such as bass, pickerel and perch prefer water that is under 75 degrees. Even though their bodies are the same temperature as the water, extreme changes can kill them — changes such as a sudden drop or rise in the water temperature, stemming from a cold front moving in, or southern air sweeping across New England.

These are the days where you should keep your live-well full of water with the aerator running. Warm water has less oxygen and bass can die quickly since they are already under stress from being caught. I have caught smallmouth bass and quickly put them into the live well only to find them dead a few minutes later. Nothing harmed them; it was a good hookset and very little fight.

In cold water, this does not happen. In fact, most bass tournaments have a 100 percent release during March, April, September, October and November. Most deaths occur in the warm summer months.

According to Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society, bigger bass die more quickly in a live well than smaller bass. My opinion on this? Baloney! If you keep your aerators running, there should not be a problem. They aren't considering that small bass have smaller lungs and don't require extra oxygen as do larger bass.

Dumping ice into your live well causes a sudden drop in temperature and could kill the fish.

All state biologists recommend less handling of the fish so the slime on their bodies remains intact, thus reducing disease. The exception: New Hampshire biologists, who have made it a law at bass tournaments that you put bass in a live well, take them out to weigh them in, put them back in the live well and then take them out to deep water and release them.

All this extra handling puts more stress on the fish and can take more slime off of them. Irt's a truly dumb law by New Hampshire's biologists. They also recommend this law so these fish that have been running around in a small box all day in your boat can't be caught again by a fisherman as you release them back into the water. If these brainiacs think that any fish that has been in captivity all day have anything on their minds except escape then they should turn in their degree and find another occupation.

We watch these fish carefully as we release them at the beach or ramp and their main interest is leaving the area as quickly as possible. Then they go to the nearest point and sit in deep water until they get their bearings. Usually, by the next morning, they have begun to head back to their home area even if it is miles away. Ninety percent of them will be home within a few days.

Cold water fish such as trout and salmon won't live in a live well, so get them back into the water as quickly as possible. If you want to take a couple of them home for a meal, ice them down so they won't spoil.

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Here are a few more famous fishing quotes.

"In every species of fish I've angled for, it is the ones that have got away that thrill me the most, the ones that keep fresh in my memory. So I say it is good to lose fish. If we didn't, much of the thrill of angling would be gone."

— Ray Bergman

"The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them."

— John Gierach in "Fly Fishing the High Country"

"It is impossible to grow weary of a sport that is never the same on any two days of the year."

— Theodore Gordon

"There's more BS in fly fishing than there is in a Kansas feedlot."

— Lefty Kreh

"Angling is extremely time consuming. That's sort of the whole point."

— Thomas McGuane

"It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this."

— W.C. Prime in 1888

"I look into my fly box, and think about all the elements I should consider in choosing the perfect fly: water temperature, what stage of development the bugs are in, what the fish are eating right now. Then I remember what a guide told me: Ninety percent of what a trout eats is brown and fuzzy and about five-eighths of an inch long."

— Allison Moir

"I've gone fishing thousands of times in my life, and I have never once felt unlucky or poorly paid for those hours on the water."

— William Tapply in "A Fly-Fishing Life".

Wayne Hooper is a member of the New England Outdoors Writers Association and a lifelong Seacoast resident. He can be reached at sports@seacoastonline.com.

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